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Welcome

Welcome to the Live Oak Church blog site. LiveOak-Church is a new church we are forming in the Cedar Park/Leander area of Central Texas envisions doing community in a new way. This site gives us the opportunity to share what is going on in our church community and to help sustain the growth of strong Christian individuals and families.

Our goal is to explore issues that we as growing Christians face daily in our communities and impact who we are and who we want to be. We want to help all of us learn to not run after the successes of this world but to be impactful in God’s name.

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Wouldn’t it
be lovely if everyone we served was grateful and always made good decisions?
Caz talked on Sunday about how unequivocal Jesus is in His command to care for
the poor. Not just the poor that we think deserve it.

Serving does not always come with
warm fuzzies. And yet how often has God reached down to us to show us the way
out of our sin, knowing that we will continue to wallow in our darkness? How
pure are our motives if we need our actions to be glorified?

Last weekend I did a 6K for Water
race, which helps provide clean water to children in impoverished countries
like Zambia. 6K is the distance many children have to walk daily for water. My
heart melts for causes like this, and I will probably run charity races all
summer. This is not bad, but what about
all of the invisible needs around me?There are families near us who don’t have the advantage of being
sponsored by a large organization and who slip through the cracks of social
services. There are families who need help paying bills. And maybe they spend
too much money on things they should not. (How many of us can claim we have
not?) It is appropriate to have boundaries and some sense of accountability. But as Caz said, we aren’t excused from the
helping the poor. Wouldn’t it be great to develop relationships with families
and help them onto a better path? Wouldn’t it be great if our church was seen
in the community as a family that helps with yardwork, childcare, and
groceries? I like that Caz shared the quote from the book about poverty, and
how it is about so much more than money. The poor in our area should not feel
inferior and invisible. They are never invisible and inferior to God. They should be served by us, welcomed by us. Who’s in?

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

My six year old
can be challenging. She can argue and whine and make me rattle my brain for
appropriate consequences. I used to threaten to take away the privilege she has
to go to sleep next to me. Then I
realized that no matter her behavior and no matter the need for a consequence,
I did not want her to have to fall asleep alone, knowing I was angry with her.
Bedtime is our reconciliation time. She needs the routine of a Hidden pictures,
telling me the best part of her day, and doing math problems before sleep. She shares
things she does not at other times of the day.

A parent- child relationship is
different than other relationships, of course. In other relationships it may be
necessary to speak hard truths before bed or even on the way to church. As Caz pointed out, we cannot claim that we
are not a “people person” or that we are right and the other person was wrong.
God reached down to reconcile to us. We were not ready to apologize. We were
not ready to change. But He valued a relationship with us.

Caz shared Matthew 5:21 and how it
matters to God that our relationships are right. It is not enough to keep
marriage vows and maintain civility. We need to step and up and offer
reconciliation.Someday my six year old will outgrow her bedtime
routine, and reconciliation will not be as simple and sweet as my hand on her
back. What could my impact be if I offered others the same grace that I offer
my kids? What could the impact in your life be?

LiveOak Blogger: Beth Kropf

LiveOak's resident author/blogger is Elizabeth Kropf who earned a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Perelandra College. She is a published poet and teaches at Bryant & Stratton College. She has been waiting her whole life for a church like Live Oak.